that when I should find them I would be accorded the courtesy and
protection that my rank as a Prince of the house of Tardos Mors
entitled me to.

The trees of the forest attracted my deep admiration as I proceeded
toward the sea. Their great stems, some of them fully a hundred
feet in diameter, attested their prodigious height, which I could
only guess at, since at no point could I penetrate their dense
foliage above me to more than sixty or eighty feet.

As far aloft as I could see the stems and branches and twigs were
as smooth and as highly polished as the newest of American-made
pianos. The wood of some of the trees was as black as ebony, while
their nearest neighbours might perhaps gleam in the subdued light
of the forest as clear and white as the finest china, or, again,
they were azure, scarlet, yellow, or deepest purple.

And in the same way was the foliage as gay and variegated as the
stems, while the blooms that clustered thick upon them may not be
described in any earthly tongue, and indeed might challenge the
language of the gods.

As I neared the confines of the forest I beheld before me and
between the grove and the open sea, a broad expanse of meadow land,
and as I was about to emerge from the shadows of the trees a sight
met my eyes that banished all romantic and poetic reflection upon
the beauties of the strange landscape.

To my left the sea extended as far as the eye could reach, before
me only a vague, dim line indicated its further shore, while at my